


Sand

by CSKazaam



Series: FFVII/Detective AU [5]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Angst, Drabble, Gen, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-09
Updated: 2012-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-30 20:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSKazaam/pseuds/CSKazaam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time passes. Zack suffers. Endings close in. (1920s Detective AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand

**Author's Note:**

> A blurb done for the 50 Scenes community on LJ! Table #1, Prompt #4 - Sand.

It was passing.  Inexorable.  Irresistible.  Unstoppable, like the noon-time train, chugging along ever so slowly through a crowded town, hauling its heavy cargo to some unknown destination.  Slow, yes, but it _will_ go, it _will_ pass, and it was too big, too massive, too unyielding to ever, ever stop.  Maddening it its slow, yet unrelenting way.

Time.

Like the sand in the hourglass, it fell, grain by grain, second by second, and like that black, steel beast, steaming and hissing and screeching, there was no way to stop it, wish though you might for a thousand years.  Even more maddening than the train, still, because of its continuous measurement of how much you had left, or how much you didn’t have, a stark, too-solid reminder that even the clock on the wall couldn’t provide, because at least the clock gave the delusion of hope.  The sand took away even that – the clock was a static thing on a glance, while the sand shifted, sinking, drifting away, too ethereal a thing to try catching with your hands, and there was never enough of it.

You could die from lack of water, you could die by train, and you could die from lack of time, and that’s exactly what would happen, if I didn’t find him first.  The train moved, the sand fell, eroding his future; each grain was another breath lost.  I needed him, but I couldn’t find him, and I needed him for _that_.  But my inadequacy was too much, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to find him _without_ him, not in time; because _he_ was out there too, and he was better than me, because he was like Sephiroth, and he was searching too.  And _he_ knew, more than I did, where Sephiroth might be, because he was a part of Sephiroth, a part of his history, in a way that I wasn’t, and could never be.

I was an outsider, struggling against the train, slipping on the grains of sand, and it was futile.  And there was no more time, because I held the last grain, and _he_ was out there, with Sephiroth, and I was here, with the clock, and the hand struck the hour.

Time was up.


End file.
